


From the Ashes

by InvaderHam



Category: Good Omens (TV), 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: (Because that's what Crowley!Phoenix is most based on), Alternate Universe - Good Omens Fusion, Angel/Demon Relationship, Angst and Feels, Aziraphale!Miles Edgeworth, But Phoenix and Miles gotta be long-lost friends in every AA AU I have, But that's AA for you and then you add Demons and Angels into the mix..., Crowley!Phoenix Wright, Hobo Phoenix Wright, I personally not into the idea of Crowley and Aziraphale knowing each other pre-fall, Lost Love, M/M, POV Miles Edgeworth, Scene: Garden of Eden (Good Omens), So I'm channeling all of the potential Angst Energy of omg my old friend is a demon into this AU, So it's Emotional Repression to the max for both of them, This is basically what if AA1 Miles reconnected with Hobonick, super melodramatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 00:16:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20416715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvaderHam/pseuds/InvaderHam
Summary: In a slightly different universe, two old friends meet at the Gates of Eden. A sword is given, questions are asked. Memories resurfae, but not quite as they used to be.





	From the Ashes

The Principality Eckbert straightened up his already incredibly straightened posture. It was his first time inhabiting a physical body, and he still felt a bit uncomfortable in his own skin, in the most literal way possible. Still, he wasn’t going to let a little_ corporeal awkwardness _get in the way of him doing his job properly, _perfectly_, as he always did.

It was a big job, truly an honor, guarding the Gates of Eden. This was where the Almighty had placed Her most important creations, Adam and Eve, and Heaven suspected that those foul fiends Below might try to plant their seeds of corruption into them. Heaven wasn’t going to regret entrusting Eckbert with such an important role in Creation. He was one of the most decorated Principalities in the Great War, and his superiors knew he always performed his assigned duties _obediently _and _efficiently_. And they all knew that nobody loathed the traitorous minions of the Adversary like he did.

Finally satisfied with his posture and the soft ruffles of his Angelic robes, Eckbert suddenly heard the sound of wings fluttering, too small to be an Angel’s. A large black bird was flying low from the vast desert in the direction of the Garden.

Eckbert narrowed his silver eyes and quickly leapt into the skies. The Angel struck the bird once with his vast, iridescent-white wings and the beast pummeled to the ground. Eckbert landed swiftly in front of the bird, which had fallen on its back, wings stretched in a rather uncomfortable position. Eckbert drew his flaming sword and pointed it right at the bird’s throat, the flame burning as cold as Eckbert’s glare. If that unholy avian tried to take flight again, Eckbert would be quick to strike.

He took a better look at the bird. It was a rather large bird, and its sharp beak and large talons indicated that it was a raptor of some kind. But other than that, it was hard to pin it down into a specific family or genus, as it didn’t look much like a hawk, a falcon, an eagle or any other bird of prey. It had a peculiar crest of feathers on its head and it was black from head to tail… or rather, on closer look, a very dark shade of ash gray. When the icy flame of Eckbert’s sword shone on the edges of the bird’s primaries, they seemed to gleam with a dull dark-blue hue. 

This was no bird created by Her, this was a Demon. This is what the Demons’ bestial forms were, a mere twisted parody of Her many living creations.

But as he examined the Demon-Bird at his mercy, the thing that unnerved Eckbert was that it was making no attempt to escape. There was no attempt to launch back to the air or flip over on its belly and try to run. Instead, it was staring at him, glaring at him with an intensity comparable to his own glare. Examining him for signs of weakness? Eckbert tensed, he drew his sword even closer and spread his wings in a menacing fashion. There were no weaknesses in him that this foolish Demon could hope to exploit.

The Demon-bird opened its beak. “Eckbert.”

It took Eckbert a second to recognize the voice. He had never heard… _him_ speak in such a tone before.

Eckbert felt a chill going through his still-unfamiliar physical form, but he tried to fight it. He could not show weakness. Not now, not in front of the Enemy.

The bird looked at him as if he was waiting for a response, and after a moment, shifted. Feathers turned to cloth and bare skin, hands emerged from the wings as they moved to the Demon’s back, the beak softened into a nose and a mouth.

The eyebrows were strangely crinkled at their edges. The hair - well, once it was a mess of spiky black hair - now, upon close examination, it was the same crest of dark feathers as the bird. The nails on the hands and feet were overgrown and dirty, as if they were really being used to snatch up small mammals to eat. The eyes… they used to be so bright and happy and warm, with a a strange sort of fire in them. Now the eyes were dull and dark, without a hint of hope or happiness or the flames of passion. The tattered robes and feathered wings were the same dull gray colors as the bird. Gray like ashes, like charcoal, like a fire that had died a long time ago.

The Demon looked completely different, and he looked exactly the same, and Eckbert wasn’t sure which was worst. Eckbert tried to steady himself and focus on the fact that the Demon’s shape was now both bigger and less aerodynamic, and thus easier to subdue. His sword was still aimed at the Demon’s throat, ready to create a rather messy discorporation. But Eckbert’s mind was somewhere else, somewhen else. He felt his mouth open.

_Don’tsayitdon’tsayitdon’tyouDAREsayit! _he screamed at himself. But his body wasn’t listening. “Orshinah…” he said, and the Name burnt his tongue, and the Name floated in the air twisted and wrong, the emphasis was on the wrong syllables, just a meaningless collection of sounds. He might as well have said “Nghooo!”

The Angel and the Demon both winced at the sound of that vacuum of meaning. 

And it was meaningless because Meaning had been stripped from it, because it was a Name of a being that no longer existed, a being that had Fallen. Extinguished.

And its ashes were still lying on the rough sand, looking at Eckbert’s sword with what seems like mild amusement.

“it’s Phlegethon, now, actually.” The Demon grinned, but his eyes were still dull and sad and dark. “Thought maybe you should know.”

Eckbert glared at him, trying to hide how hard his body wanted to shake, and his eyes wanted to tear up just seeing him like this. The tenser Eckbert got, the brighter the ice-cold flame of his sword burned. 

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? A lot of things have changed.” Phlegethon stared off to the side, as if the vast ocean of sand around them was somehow more fascinating than the Angel and his blazing-freezing flaming sword. “I haven’t seen you since, well, the War. Since…”

_Since WHAT? Since you decided to doubt the Almighty and abandon your duties? Since you… since you looked at me with those bright eyes of yours and just, somehow, COULDN’T UNDERSTAND why I wouldn’t help your army of traitors? _The words rang through Eckbert’s head, but he couldn’t say them. If he said them, it would make it _real_. It would make that… thing, lying in front of him, really Orshinah.

(And the Name burned in his mind too.)

Eckbert tried to channel his hurt elsewhere. “Begone, foul fiend!” he said in the most holy affectation he could muster. “Do not think you can deceive me with false friendship! I know that you are not the same Angel I knew so long ago!”

“Yeah, of course I’m not. That’s the whole point of being a Demon.” The Demon chuckled, but it was as hollow as his eyes. Then he looked straight at the Angel above him again. “Funny thing is, I could say the same thing about you, Eckbert.”

Eckbert flinched, as if the Demon had struck him with a blade and not with words. His sword fell to the ground. 

Faster than Eckbert’s mind could process it, Phlegethon shifted back into the form of a bird, and flew past the Angel, into the Garden. 

Although his mind was now clouded by a storm of emotions, Eckbert quickly picked up his sword and ran after the bird, after Phlegethon, after Orshinah.

* * *

_It’s all your fault, it’s all your fault! _Eckbert’s mind screamed at him. _You had a duty, a sacred duty, and look what happened. Heaven trusted you, the Almighty trusted you, and you were weak. Look what happens when you fail, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed!_

He was feeling physically queasy, which was a new sensation and he already decided he didn’t like it at all. Still, the Almighty had given him another command as the guardian of the Eastern Gate. It was not a nice command, but since when did being an Angel have anything to do with being _nice_?

Adam and Eve looked frightened as they were led out of the Garden by Eckbert, they were still wearing makeshift outfits of fig leaves. The desert stretched all around them, vast and endless, and these two had only known the lushness of the Garden. Deep down, that world made even an immortal being like Eckbert feel small, it was so vast and new. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for those two mortals. 

He never said a word to them before, he didn’t see the point.

It’s all his fault, he let his guard down, when he had a _Demon _at his mercy, and now they had been tainted by the Demon’s influence, by Sin. Thank the Lord something like this could not happen to Angels. 

It was simply impossible. 

They were all standing just outside the gates. The two humans looking at him, pleading, as if he could do something else. Even though they all surely knew that he couldn’t.

Doubt snuck into his mind, and he tried to crush it, how could an Angel doubt the righteousness of the Almighty?

He remembered himself, before the War, before the rise of the Adversary. When asking questions merely made you peculiar but not _unforgivable_. 

He remembered an Angelic face with bright eyes and messy black spikes pleading with him to understand, how could he not understand?

He remembered blank, hollow eyes piercing through him.

_“Funny thing is, I could say the same thing about you, Eckbert.”_

“The sun is going to set soon,” he said quietly “It gets awfully cold here at night.” He had been shivering in his Angelic Robes the last six nights, and he assumed his corporeal body was more resilient than that of mortals. 

The two humans looked at him in utter surprise. Perhaps they didn’t even know he could speak their tongue. “Y-yes, you’re right!” Eve managed to say.

Eckbert looked at his sword, the fire burned cold. Cold like his rage, like his hatred. He handed it over to Eve. When her gentle hand touched the hilt, the fire shifted, turning warmer, more real. Adam and Eve both looked at him, at a loss for words.

“You’re going to need light…” Eckbert said, clutching at his elbow and looking away “and a source of heat… It’s… it’s awfully cold at night.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eve smile, and Adam followed. “Oh, oh thank you! Thank you so much!” she said brightly.

“No… there’s… no need to thank me.” Eckbert felt a horrible lump at his throat. He had never been good with thanks and getting praise for disobedience felt so very wrong. Disobedience shouldn’t feel _good _when you’re an Angel. “You two should just go.”

“Um, but, but we just want to thank you for-”

“It’s fine, really. There’s no need to thank me. I’m just… You two need to leave, now.”

“B-but-”

“Just GO!” He glared at them, his silvery eyes full of Angelic Fury. He knew his voice was too harsh, that there was no need to yell, but he could not stop himself. 

Adam and Eve recoiled in fear, nodded and headed toward the sandy dunes stretching behind them. Eve gave him one last sad look, before she moved forward, holding on to Adam. Eckbert turned away in a huff, clutching at his elbow again.

Behind his head, behind the gates of Eden, he heard the soft flutter of wings. 

He turned around but saw nothing except the grand wall and the trees.

Eckbert felt queasy again. 

Spreading his own wings, Eckbert flew to the top of the wall separating Eden from the rest of the Earth. He didn’t look at Adam and Eve, holding his sword and walking over to the horizon slowly, or at the Garden. He just stared down at the pale stone beneath his feet and hands.

Emotions of all kind whirled up in his mind, and he tried to focus on Anger. Anger should have been the appropriate emotion, when dealing with Demons. Yes, that _Phlegethon _did something terrible. Tempting these humans into disobeying God. It was HIS fault that those poor two had to be banished. How dare this disgusting minion of Satan try and sneak into the Almighty’s Garden and spread Below’s corruption there? How dare he… talk to Eckbert as if they were friends? How dare he look at him like that, like he knew him? _How dare he show his face in front of me? _

The Angels who had Fallen had their Names destroyed. Wiped from existence, wiped from memory. It should’ve been nearly impossible for Eckbert to remember that word, ‘Orshinah’. He was only able to preserve it by the way it burned in his mind, by the negative space it left behind. It was a struggle to preserve his memories of his old friend in general. The Fall, the destruction of their Angelic selves, was like a black hole trying to suck in any evidence to what they once were, including memories. Eckbert kept those memories safe against the tides, stricken by a strong, yet odd sense of sentimentality he never managed to justify to himself.

But now that he had seen _Phlegethon_, it was getting even harder to remember. That fiery, infernal word was seeping into the void of ‘Orshinah’ and threatening to fill it completely, to erase it completely. He could feel how his memories of his old friend’s face were getting hazier. How he remembered him by how his visage differed from the Demon he saw today, and not simply the face himself. White and sky-blue robes instead of ashy gray ones, face framed by black hair and not feathers and, of course, his eyes....

And it’s this thought that flared up Eckbert’s anger into rage. 

How dare he, really? That… that thing, that Demon, was not really his old friend. His old friend was destroyed when he Fell, along with his Name. This was just… the ashes left after he burned completely. Some sort of twisted reflection. A shadow. A joke. How dare those long-dead ashes rise up and… look at him as if he _knew _him and infect his precious preserved memories and fill him with all… all of these feelings and-

Eckbert heard a soft flutter of wings again. When he turned, the ash-colored bird was perched on the wall. Phlegethon shifted into his humanoid shape and looked at him, inquisitively.

And suddenly, all of the rage that had been slowly building up in Eckbert’s chest died out completely. He felt numb, feeling how those lost eyes looked at him.

“Hiya, Eckbert,” Phlegethon said calmly. He was still perched in a position that should be very uncomfortable for anything roughly human-shaped.

“...Phlegethon…” Eckbert acknowledged lamely.

“Big day, huh? Very eventful.” He was quiet for a moment “I saw what you did back then,” the Demon said softly “With the sword, and the humans”

“I know you did.” Eckbert averted his gaze “If you wish to laugh at me, or gloat, can you at least do so behind my back, Demon?” He clutched at his elbow again.

He heard Phlegethon chuckle “I’m not gonna laugh at you, Eckbert.” And something about the way he said it made the Angel turn his head to look at him. “Why would I… I mean, what you did was _amazing!_” His crest of feathers puffed up in excitement and he was smiling, and it was not the bitter, hollow smile from before. Phlegethon’s smile was wide and honest, and downright sunny, and his eyes were gleaming and bright. There was a warm fire in them again.

_Just like he used to smile all the time back then, before… _Another realization crept into Eckbert’s mind. _His eyes, his smile, the Fall didn’t actually change them. Not directly at least. It’s not like how becoming a Demon gave him those horrible overgrown nails and ash-gray wings. They simply look so dark and lost because…_

Eckbert didn’t finish that thought.

“T-thank you, Phlegethon,” Eckbert said quietly. His mind was too preoccupied with all the things he shouldn’t be thinking about to consider how this wasn’t the appropriate reaction to being _complimented by a Demon_. He could feel an odd sense of warmth grow in his chest.

Eckbert’s self-consciousness got to him eventually. If the _Demon _complimented him, then what he did truly was the wrong thing. Which he knew already. Why did he do that? “...It’s all your fault, you know.” Eckbert gritted his teeth, forcibly trying to make himself angry again, rather than… any other of the dozens of emotions swirling inside him at the moment. “You tempted them into disobedience... And now look what happened…They wouldn’t have needed my sword if you only left them alone...” He gestured vaguely. But he couldn’t be angrier at the Demon than with himself. It was in a Demon’s nature to corrupt and ruin, he couldn’t help it. But _Eckbert _was an Angel with a mission from God and somehow, he failed. 

The mirth on the Demon’s face faded entirely, the crest of feathers flattened, his eyes lost their shine again. Phlegethon looked at the two human silhouettes on the horizon “All I wanted was…” He swallowed, and then tried again, looking at Eckbert with a bitter smirk. “All I did was tell them the truth. They came to a decision all on their own, I don’t understand--” 

“--Of course, you don’t understand, you’re a _Demon_.” Eckbert snapped, as if he understood it himself, which he didn’t. “I, however, cannot doubt the ineffable wisdom of the Lord.”

Phlegethon cocked his head to one side, as if he had picked up on the uncertainty in the Angel’s voice.

_Damn him, (although that is a bit of a redundant thing to think)_.

“Is the truth really that bad of a thing?”

Clouds were gathering around them, Eckbert had never seen so many clouds in the sky. In the previous seven days of creation, the sky had been almost completely clear.

“...Sometimes it is…” Eckbert says weakly. _Maybe sometimes the truth is the Devil’s work because sometimes the truth is cruel. Because sometimes the truth makes people disobey the Lord. Because sometimes the truth is that you’re a Demon and I’m not going to remember who you used to be one day, and I can’t even bring myself to hate you for it. _These words are all on his tongue, but he doesn’t say any of them. 

Phlegethon looked lost in thought too, then he tried to force a smirk again. “That hardly seems fair.”

“Maybe it’s not. And maybe we just can’t be certain,” Eckbert said. “Maybe it’s not our place to decide whatever or not something is fair, and maybe sometimes it’s not fair and we just have to bear it.”

_You kept saying you agreed with Lucifer because of the things **I **told you. All of the questions I asked you back then. You couldn’t understand how I would disagree. Is it my fault you Fell? Should it have been me? Is that how it would’ve gone in a fair world? _

“Do you really believe that?” Phlegethon asked, trying to keep his voice light but his eyes were glum. Small drops of water started to fall from the sky, it was bothersome, but mostly ignorable.

_Yes. No. Maybe. No. Never. Maybe. _

“Yes.” He wasn’t sure if he meant it, but the word just tumbled out of his mouth. 

“I should’ve guessed you’d say that.” Phlegethon stared furiously at the desert and not at the Angel standing next to him. When the dimming light of the setting sun struck his feathers, Eckbert noticed, it had the same effect as the flames of his sword against the Demon’s bird-form. The tips of his primaries shone in a dark blue color. The edges of his torn gray robes also had that same shade of faded blue. “Well, I’ll see you around, I guess.”

A distant unfamiliar sound of a rumble, the first thunder in the first thunderstorm. Then the flutter of wings. 

“Yes, I suppose you cannot stay” _I want you to stay_, is what Eckbert wanted to say, even though he didn’t understand why himself. As the rain grew from a drizzle to a storm, drops falling against his shiny white wings, he watched the ash-colored bird fly off into the distance and disappear. 

_I want you to stay. _He shouldn’t have said that, why would he say that? Meeting with Phlegethon had brought him nothing but… failure, and unnecessary feelings and questions, and… the slow decay of his old memories. He forgot the old Name, Phlegethon had swallowed it completely in such a short time. Why would he display his weaknesses to a Demon so openly, especially when said Demon WAS the weakness?

Still though, he wished he’d stay. 

It’s lonely here.

_“I’ll see you around, I guess.”_

_I hope so._

**Author's Note:**

> Etymology Fun Facts:   
Eckbert - German for 'Edge-Bright'  
Orshinah - the Aramaic name for the Phoenix bird  
Phlegethon - a river of fire in Hades according to Greek Myths. Literally the name means 'flaming'. I think that if he changed it later like how Crowley changed his, it's gonna be to 'Phlegon'. It's shorter and more catchy and less 'obviously' demonic. It's the name of one of the horses of Helios the God of the Sun (and means 'Burning), so it's a decision to replace the Hellfire Motif with a Sun Motif, which is pretty Phoenix Wright-y to me!


End file.
